Bitter Amber and Broken Buttons
by LiteratiAngel
Summary: ...neither of them were ones for ‘making love’; they were desperate for human contact while the world closed around them, they were drunk on Firewhisky and loneliness." Annalise Dearborn was never one for leaving a man to drink alone. SiriusOC. R&R!


**Bitter Amber and Broken Buttons**

**Disclaimer: All recognisable characters and products belong to JKR, I just like playing with Sirius...*wink wink nudge nudge* Annalise is mine but if you read OotP carefully enough, you'll see that Caradoc isn't.  
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**Disclaimer Take Two: I also don't own _You're All I Have_, it belongs to Snow Patrol.**

**A/N: So this is it; goodbye to my Smut!Writing virginity. I must admit that this has been the _weirdest_ writing process ever since I kept changing my mind about whether I was going to write smut or not, hence the couple of false starts that occur...Sorry about that...On the whole, though, I don't think it's bad for a first attempt! So yeah, onto the plot; it's set just before James and Lily's deaths, and basically, Sirius is a depressing idiot because he doesn't think he belongs in the Order 'cause of who he is...that's about the gist of it...hope you enjoy!**

**A/N Take Two: Please remember that all reviews are greatly appreciated so once you've finished reading, have a go at pressing the purdy li'l button at the bottom of the page...there may be some Chocolate Frogs in it for you...  
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_You're cinematic razor sharp,_  
_ A welcome arrow through the heart. _  
_ Under your skin feels like home,_  
_ Electric shocks on aching bones. _

_ Give me a chance to hold on,_  
_ Give me a chance to hold on, _  
_ Give me a chance to hold on, _  
_ Just give me something to hold onto._

_**You're All I Have -Snow Patrol**_

..._  
_

The room was dimly lit and dusty, shadows creeping out of every dank corner, with only one solitary candle flickering feebly, dripping thick translucent wax onto the scrubbed mahogany table. It held the distinct impression of having once been ostentatious and well cared for; the ceiling was bedecked with grandiose crystal chandeliers, now adorned with thick clumps of spider's webs, and there was a large family crest set into one wall, which had presumably once been gold, but since then, the gilt had been worn down and only faint traces of shimmering leaf remained.

The room had one sole occupant, who seemed almost as unkempt and depressed as the room itself. His face held vestiges of handsomeness, with a haughty, straight nose, and, surrounded by light crinkles, soft silver eyes that looked out of place, sunken into his sombre expression. His black hair was tangled and unkempt, covering his face from view. He was sitting in one of the grand carved dining chairs, holding a half-filled crystal tumbler, which he seemed to be studying intently; watching the ice melt into the amber liquid, causing the appearance of clear liquid swirls, which permeated the golden-brown as he swilled the glass around, letting the alcohol slosh against the sides. A click of heels sounded along the corridor beyond the closed door and he stiffened, straightening up and downing his glass before placing it purposefully on the table with a determined clunk.

The door swung open and a cool female voice said, "Hello, stranger." The man did not turn around. There was a pause and the woman spoke again. "Have you been avoiding me, Sirius?" A slight teasing note flickered through her voice, making the ends of the man's mouth twitch upwards slightly.

"Not at all, Annalise," he replied, his voice steady and calm despite the almost imperceptible shake of his hand against the tabletop. The woman seemed to take his reply as a sign that she should join him and the clicking resumed.

"Don't call me that, Sirius," she reproached as she sat down. "You know I hate it."

"Why else do you think I do it?" he asked as she pulled out her wand and conjured a second tumbler for herself. She picked up the dusty bottle labelled 'Firewhisky' and uncapped it, pouring a generous glassful for herself before adding three ice cubes and passing the bottle to Sirius, who grabbed it and gulped the alcohol straight from the bottle.

She chuckled. "You haven't changed," she remarked, passing him the cap of the bottle. He turned to take it from her and it was the first time he had looked at her since she had entered the room; she looked the same as she had done two months previously, if a little thinner and more exhausted. She had never been what you might call beautiful; she was tall and slim with soft, auburn curls framing her face, her nose was long and a little crooked at the bridge, she had a small mouth, and piercing grey-blue eyes that seemed to look right through everything, but she had a way of shifting slightly in her seat that made Sirius sure that she knew he was a slave to her every movement.

He smiled slightly. "Neither have you," he countered.

The silence returned, filling the room with suffocating stuffiness, punctuated only by the chink of glass against wood and the slosh of liquid as they drank without speaking. Sirius was the first to break it. Clearing his throat unnecessarily, he set his glass down and lifted his gaze from the table, staring instead at a patch of damp on the opposite wall; anything to avoid looking at her. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "About Caradoc…he didn't deserve to die like that."

She shrugged lightly, as if the matter didn't concern her. "Would've happened sooner or later. He was too careless." Her head dropped forward, eyes fixed on the table, curls falling over her face as her knuckles whitened against the glass in her hand. He moved to put a hand over hers but thought better of it, pulling away and settling for running it through his hair instead, sweeping the tangle of black away from his face.

A slight, guttural choke escaped from behind Sirius' hand and she realised that he was laughing. He pulled his hand away from his face, letting the matted disarray of hair fall back across his face as he turned to look at her, his expression halfway between a smirk and a grimace. "My darling cousin," he muttered bitterly, indicating a tapestry that hung beneath the eroded coat of arms. She followed the direction of his careless hand, her eyes resting on a name near the bottom of the frayed cloth.

"Yeah," she said, never taking her eyes of the stitching. "Somehow, I get the feeling that Bella never really warmed to me…" She trailed off, dropping her gaze back to her glass of Firewhisky.

There was another silence as he watched her lift the glass to her lips, and the soft rolling motion of her throat as she gulped the amber liquid. "Shouldn't you be with Remus?" he asked suddenly, without thinking. Her empty glass hit the table and she turned to look at him, torn between shock and amusement.

"Me and Remus? Is that what you think?" she asked incredulously, a small smile playing around her lips but not quite reaching her piercing eyes. He nodded slowly, suddenly incapable of speech; he felt ridiculous. "No," she said firmly, assuaging his fears. "No. Remus is too…_nice_. Nice isn't what I need right now."

"So…what _do_ you need?" he asked, despite the nagging voice in the back of his mind that told him this was exactly the wrong question.

"I need someone to rage and scream at me. Someone to blame me, not mollycoddle me. Anger. No sympathy."

"But it's _not_ your fault, Annie," he said, puzzled.

"I could have stopped it." The statement was flat, throwaway, but her fingers gripped the edge of the table, as if she was falling; a dying woman clutching at straws. "I was right there, Sirius. I was right next to him, duelling with Dolohov. I could've done…_something_."

"Voldemort wanted your brother dead, there's no way you could've done anything."

"I could have used the shield charm, I could've jinxed Bellatrix, I could have died instead!"

"No." His answer was faster and more adamant than he would have liked but it seemed to shake her enough to make her look at him again. "_Protego_ wouldn't have had any effect on Bella, you know that. You could've jinxed her, sure, but I've duelled Dolohov before. He's fast, faster than I've seen anyone duel. If you'd jinxed her, you would've died and so would Caradoc, and what a waste _that_ would have been. And as for you dying…"

He paused and their eye contact held. Her hand still gripped the table tightly, holding on for dear life. She sucked in a breath. "What about it?" she asked, still watching him intently. This time he didn't hesitate. He stretched out his arm, loosening her fingers from the wood and closing his own around her hand in a vice-like grip. His silver eyes had become fierce and steely grey and she met his stare with her own, defiant and challenging. Neither of them could pinpoint the moment when the haze of buzzing silence broke, washing over them as Sirius pulled her flush against him and kissed her hungrily. She gasped out, throwing her head back against the heady sensation of his lips as they moved down from her mouth and along her neck, his teeth nipping at her pulse as it raced along with her heartbeat.

He inhaled the perfume of her skin as he traversed her neck and collarbone, his tongue darting out to taste the flesh in the hollow of her neck before moving back to claim her lips again. Lost in his onslaught against her senses, her hand wound itself into his hair and pulled him closer. She pushed her tongue against his lips and tasted alcohol, bitter and sticky along the flesh of his mouth. He groaned against her and pulled away, fingers flying to his lips as he wiped away the taste of her. She sat, immobile, breathing heavily as she watched him stand up and walk towards the door. He paced the length of the room, always staying as far away from her as possible, before he spoke. "I shouldn't have done that."

She scoffed, taken aback by the bald statement. "No," she agreed, anger creeping into her voice, covering the breathlessness he had left her with. "You shouldn't. But you did, and I didn't stop you. What does that say about us, Sirius?"

"That we're both idiots." He still refused to look at her, studying the tapestry that held the Black family tree. There was a quiet swish of cloth and the click of her heels sounded against the stone floor again. Before he knew it, her hand was on his hip, her head at his shoulder, her eyes following his gaze to the blackened edges of a wand tip shaped hole where his name should have been.

"_Toujours pur_," she read aloud. Her free hand snaked upwards, palming Sirius' cheek and turning him to face her as her thumb traced whirling patterns along the rough stubble of his jaw. "That's not you, you know."

"Then why do I feel like this?" he asked, his voice shaking. "Like I don't belong with the Order, like I'm the enemy…" His words were coming in choking gasps and he wrenched his face from her hand, turning away again. "…I couldn't even…not their Secret Keeper…trusted me…Dumbledore said…can't…James and Lily…" There was silence again; an integral part of their encounter. Then, with a sense of finality, he said, "Peter is the better choice."

She looked at him, silhouetted in the flickering yellow light of the candle. The whisper was past her lips before she could stop it; "Not for me." She reached up with her hand, twining her fingers into his mass of black hair, pulling him down into a kiss.

He pushed her away gently. "Annie, we can't."

"Why not?" she asked, sadness colouring her voice.

"'Cause I'm not good enough for you, you said so yourself!"

She took a step back, eyes wide and stunned, then she laughed derisively. "Sirius, we were fifteen and I thought I was in love with James! Do you honestly think I was just going to throw myself into your waiting arms and play grown-ups?" Her fingers stroked his arms through the fabric of his shirt, feeling the muscles tense as she moved closer to him; his whole body was rigid, determined to keep her at arms length while he processed it. They were drunk, and angry, and sad. Not a good reason to start something. Especially not _now_; not while Voldemort's supporters were massing and the Order was outnumbered ten-to-one.

She seemed to guess what he was thinking. "I know," she whispered softly. "I know we're outnumbered, I know a Death Eater could jump out from behind one of these ridiculous tapestries any second and hex us into oblivion…" He let out an amused _'huh'_ of sound. "…but I want you, Sirius." The words were enough and he pulled her closer, hands grasping cloth, tracing the outline of her body through her robes as he captured her lips with his own for a bruising kiss.

"Say it again," he growled, the vibrations in his chest as he spoke making her shiver.

She hissed out a breath as his teeth caught on her neck. "I…"

"_Say it!_"

"I…" His tongue moved up her neck, licking and tasting, and she gasped again at the heated contact. "…_want_ you…"

He needed no other persuasion and words suddenly seemed overrated. Her robes, which were silver-blue and shimmering in the faint candlelight, were easy to remove, the silk gliding smoothly across her skin and pooling at her feet, leaving her in just her plain, silver satin underwear. His breath hitched as he drunk in the sight of her as he lifted her bodily onto the cool surface of the mahogany table. He ran his hands across her shoulders, rubbing his palms in circles along her creamy skin, slipping the straps of her bra down her arms before reaching behind her to undo the clasp, freeing her breasts to the cool air. He palmed them greedily, his thumbs rubbing her nipples, making her gasp and writhe under his touch as she tried to steady herself for long enough to make some headway with his shirt.

Her hands traced the planes of his chest through his black silk shirt, marvelling at him as she undid the buttons one by one, slowly exposing his skin with the trail of coarse dark hair trailing down his stomach. It was the most exquisite form of torture Sirius had ever experienced but neither of them were ones for _'making love'_; they were desperate for human contact while the world closed around them, they were drunk on Firewhisky and loneliness. He kissed her like a man starved, pushing his tongue roughly into the hot confines of her mouth and all patience flew out of the proverbial window, her nails scraping down his already exposed skin as she tore his shirt away from his body, smirking against his exploration of her mouth as she heard the remaining buttons, broken now, clattering against the stone flags. He trailed open-mouthed kisses along her neck and shoulder until his lips latched onto an erect nipple, his tongue swirling in a way that she knew should completely illegal, and her fingers threaded into his hair, pulling him closer, holding him against her.

He removed his mouth and she moaned at the lost of contact. He slipped to his knees, letting his fingers caress her swinging feet, still encased in the silver satin straps of her heeled shoes. He undid the bronze buckles that rested against her ankles and pulled off one shoe, then the other, flinging them carelessly into a darkened corner of the room. The heel of his hand pushed effortlessly along her long, slim legs, revelling in their smoothness and the enticing whimpers his movements elicited as he reached her remaining piece of underwear; she pushed against the wood, lifting herself up slightly and opening her legs so that Sirius could remove her knickers. Now that she was completely naked, his tongue replaced his hands, lapping small circles along the flesh of her thighs, getting increasing closer to where they both wanted him to be. She squirmed along the table, shifting closer to the edge – closer to _him_ – and, all too suddenly for her to truly prepare herself, his tongue was against her slick folds, his mouth sucking her clit, pushing her closer to a very different edge than that of the table. She moaned audibly, pushing back against his tongue as she gripped the edged of the table, finally crying out as her orgasm hit and she came into his mouth.

While she recovered, he took the time to rid himself of his last remaining vestiges of clothing, shoes and socks scattered across the room, his trousers dropped onto a richly upholstered chair, his boxers abandoned on the floor. Her hand reached out, grasping him desperately, guiding him towards her. Stifling a groan, he buried his cock inside her as she wrapped her legs around him and slipped off the table, holding onto his neck, her hands twining into his hair again. He thrust into her repeatedly – blindly – letting his senses guide his movement; his erratic movements made pleasure coil in her stomach again and she dug her heels into his arse, pushing him deeper as their gasps grew louder and more breathless, and Sirius' thrusts gained momentum. His hands fumbled at her waist, desperately trying to find purchase on her hips as they slid together. He slipped out of her with a moan, pulling them both to the floor. The stone was cold against the sweat-covered skin of his back as she lowered herself onto him, her hands grasping at his muscled shoulders. He watched in wonder as she rode him, her tousled curls sticking to the perspiration on her face, keening and throwing her head back as his cock hit the right spot inside her and her inner walls clenched around him.

"_Fuck…_" he hissed as she squeezed against him; it was the first word either of them had spoken since his teeth had grazed her neck and she told him that she wanted him.

Her whimpers grew more pronounced as she moved closer to release. "_Please_…" she whispered, although neither of them really knew what she was pleading for. Sirius' deft fingers slipped down to where their bodies were joined and teased her hard bundle of nerves until her cries mounted and she came, clenching around his cock and sending him cresting into his own orgasm, still pounding into her as he emptied himself into her and she screamed his name.

Sleep came easily to both of them; exhausted, drunk, and warm in each other's company against the cold stone floor of the Black family mansion.

...

Annalise woke alone, covered by her own robes, shivering against the floor. The only evidence that Sirius Black had even been in the room was two empty, amber-stained crystal tumblers, and the fragments of the buttons from a black silk shirt.

She scrambled into her clothes, repairing the rips along the hem of her robes that Sirius had caused when he had torn them off her body. Her throat was on fire, hoarse from crying out against him and she gulped, trying to soothe it as the door opened with a quiet click. She turned. Remus looked at her, his face ashen, worry lines crinkling around his eyes.

"What is it, Remus? What's wrong?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

He opened his mouth as if to answer but closed it again, unable to speak. She walked towards him cautiously, taking his hand and tilting his face to look at her. He swallowed and finally said, "James and Lily."

"What about them?"

"They're dead. Sirius sold them to Voldemort last night. I would _never_ have believed…" His voiced trailed off and a soft choking noise belied the flatness of his tone.

She shook her head, stepping back from her friend. He had been with her last night. She tried to convince herself that it couldn't be true; Sirius loved James and Lily, he would lay down his life for them, he was with _her_ last night…But somehow, she couldn't dissuade the nagging voice at the back of her mind that reminded her that she had woken up alone, and Sirius' words from the night before swam back to her; _"Then why do I feel like this? Like I don't belong with the Order, like I'm the enemy…"_ A tear crept down her cheek.


End file.
